Virginia Blais and Dustin Rhoades
Taipei American School
Session 4 Posting 1 in response to exercise 4
Experimental Group
Control Group
Independent Variable
Video with Metaphor
Video without Metaphor
Extraneous Variable
Learning Styles
Learning Styles
Dependent Variable
Results on 10 Question Quiz
Results on 10 Question Quiz
Conclusion: Following the video with a metaphor increased student retention of the principles of electricity. Note: According to the researcher, there is no relationship between learning styles and retention of the material in the video – so, the extraneous variable had no impact on the dependent variable.
Session 4 Posting 2 (Our research question):
What is the impact of “Words Their Way” (spelling instructional program) on student progression across a spelling continuum?
Experimental Group Class A Fifth Graders
Control Group Class B Fifth Graders
Pre/Post Test
Pre/Post Test
Independent Variable
Words Their Way Program
No Spelling Program
Extraneous Variable
1.Tutors outside of school 2.Activity choice 3.Teacher time with each differentiated group 4.The flexible groupings (different students may work more effectively with one another) 5.Time spent weekly on W.T.W activities may vary somewhat due to scheduling challenges
1. Tutors outside of school
Dependent Variable
Post Spelling Assessment
Post Spelling Assessment
A few questions: 1.Do we need to have a control group when all we are interested in finding out is if our students are making gains along the spelling continuum? 2.We are also confused about the Likert scale and the kind of conclusions we would want to draw from it. For example, would be trying to draw conclusions about “how students reported feeling about themselves as spellers” before and after the program? Or, would be trying to correlate feelings about spelling and how far students progressed along the continuum? It just seems like it would be difficult to draw any conclusions from this that would be reliable. Maybe we’re missing something. Any ideas/thoughts? 3.Lastly, we’re not completely sure how much attention we should give to the extraneous variables above. We feel like we could name many more of these. Ultimately, the big change in the lives of our students will be the 60-90 minutes a week we spend on this new spelling program.
Taipei American School
Session 4
Posting 1 in response to exercise 4
Note: According to the researcher, there is no relationship between learning styles and retention of the material in the video – so, the extraneous variable had no impact on the dependent variable.
Posting 2 (Our research question):
What is the impact of “Words Their Way” (spelling instructional program) on student progression across a spelling continuum?
Class A
Fifth Graders
Class B
Fifth Graders
2. Activity choice
3. Teacher time with each differentiated group
4. The flexible groupings (different students may work more effectively with one another)
5. Time spent weekly on W.T.W activities may vary somewhat due to scheduling challenges
1. Do we need to have a control group when all we are interested in finding out is if our students are making gains along the spelling continuum?
2. We are also confused about the Likert scale and the kind of conclusions we would want to draw from it. For example, would be trying to draw conclusions about “how students reported feeling about themselves as spellers” before and after the program? Or, would be trying to correlate feelings about spelling and how far students progressed along the continuum? It just seems like it would be difficult to draw any conclusions from this that would be reliable. Maybe we’re missing something. Any ideas/thoughts?
3. Lastly, we’re not completely sure how much attention we should give to the extraneous variables above. We feel like we could name many more of these. Ultimately, the big change in the lives of our students will be the 60-90 minutes a week we spend on this new spelling program.